Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

andlt;Pandgt;Although many people view virtual reality as a totally new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive images. Indeed, the search for illusionary visual space can be traced back to antiquity. In this book, Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the art history of illusion and immersion. He describes the metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and relates those concepts to interactive art, interface design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution. Grau retells art history as media history, helping us to understand the phenomenon of virtual reality beyond the hype.Grau shows how each epoch used the technical means available to produce maximum illusion. He discusses frescoes such as those in the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii and the gardens of the Villa Livia near Primaporta, Renaissance and Baroque illusion spaces, and panoramas, which were the most developed form of illusion achieved through traditional methods of painting and the mass image medium before film. Through a detailed analysis of perhaps the most important German panorama, Anton von Werner's 1883 The Battle of Sedan, Grau shows how immersion produced emotional responses. He traces immersive cinema through Cinerama, Sensorama, Expanded Cinema, 3-D, Omnimax and IMAX, and the head mounted display with its military origins. He also examines those characteristics of virtual reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of illusionary art. His analysis draws on the work of contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss. Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space but also a theoretical framework for analyzing its phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout history and into the future.andlt;/Pandgt;

Review

Long established in Germany, media studies is just beginning to get hot in English-speaking countries. Grau's book makes a crucial contribution to this field by raising the bar for any future archeology of a virtual computer image. Equally at home in art history, media history, and new media art, Grau situates immersive image spaces of new media within a rich historical landscape. A must-read for anyone interested in new media, visual culture, art history, cinema, and all other fields that use virtual images. Alison Abbott - Nature

Review

"Oliver Grau has given us one of the more fascinating works this year." Guy Van Belle, European Photography The MIT Press

Review

"Highly original..." Alison Abbott Nature The MIT Press

Review

... Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion puts forth the sort of provocative insights that any Newromancer fan can appreciate. Scientific American

Review

"Oliver Grau expands notions of immersion with a comprehensive overview of artistic meditations on illusion, presence and space. Using historical and innovative media-art project examples, he offers multiple perspectives on the evolution of our world-view. No doubt this volume will be a useful resource for any serious practitioner and/or theorist engaging the merging of art, science and technology."--Victoria Vesna, Chair, Design and Media Arts, University of California, Los AngelesPlease note: Arrived too late to appear on book jacket.

Review

"The highly ambitious task of locating the latest image technologies within a wider art-historical context has now been accomplished." Friedrich Kittler, Humboldt University, Berlin, and author of Gramophone, Film, TypewriterThe MIT Press

Review

Grau's Virtual Art opens the door onto a significant new approach to media analysis by focusing in depth on a particular kind of digital art -- the attempt to create immersive environments. The combination of media archeology with careful analysis of both the possiblities and limitations of the impulse to put the viewer inside the artwork will make this book a valuable resource to both practitioners and theoreticians. Friedrich Kittler, Humboldt University, Berlin, and author of < i=""> Gramophone, Film, Typewriter <>

Review

andquot;Long established in Germany, media studies is just beginning to get hot in English-speaking countries. Grau's book makes a crucial contribution to this field by raising the bar for any future archeology of a virtual computer image. Equally at home in art history, media history, and new media art, Grau situates immersive image spaces of new media within a rich historical landscape. A must-read for anyone interested in new media, visual culture, art history, cinema, and all other fields that use virtual images.andquot;andmdash;Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media

Review

andquot;Highly original ...andquot;andmdash; Alison Abbott, Nature

Review

"Grau traces the lineage of virtual reality as farback as the frescoes of a villa in Pompeii." Scientific American The MIT Press

Review

"Highly original ..."— Alison Abbott, Nature

Review

...a volume that will likely be used as a canonical text in the study of virtual reality... The MIT Press

Review

Winner in the 2003 AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Competition in the Jackets category.

Review

"For over a decade now, Lovink has been one of the most prominent figures in cyber culture and new media worldwide. A new-media theorist, an Internet critic, an activist, an inventor of new innovative forms of net-based discourse, an organizer of ground-breaking events--remarkably, he excels at all these different roles. I think of Lovink as a network of distributed sensors: everywhere at once, he is always the first to notice new changing directions of net culture, the first to name them, and the first to offer sober and illuminating analysis. Now we are fortunate to have his brilliant dispatches from the Net front collected in one book. This is a new kind of book from a new type of public intellectual. Think of it as theory on-the-go--or as a set of help files to keep handy as you navigate the present, on- and off-line."--Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New MediaThe MIT Press

Review

"The search to understand and create artificial life is one of the grand interdisciplinary quests of our times, stretching from art through computer science to biology. Mitchell Whitelaw's *Metacreation* is its most complete study yet - cataloguing the full range of research, exploring the underlying science and art, and offering theoretical tools to understand the cultural context of these inquiries."--Stephen Wilson, Professor of Conceptual and Information Arts, San Francisco State University, and author of *Information Arts*

Review

"Over three decades ago, when most of the art history establishment was clueless about technology-inspired art, Frank Popper was there recognizing its importance, organizing shows, and trying to help readers understand its implications. Taking advantage of this unprecedented historical vantage point, his latest book offers an expansive survey of technology-inspired work in plastic arts, interactive media, installation, and net art, and explores the ways in which artists integrate aesthetic and cultural concerns to reveal new directions for humanizing technology."--Stephen Wilson, Professor of Conceptual and Information Arts, San Francisco State University, and author of *Information Arts*

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"Grau's Virtual Art opens the door onto a significant new approach to media analysis by focusing in depth on a particular kind of digital art - the attempt to create immersive environments. The combination of media archeology with careful analysis of both the possiblities and limitations of the impulse to put the viewer inside the artwork will make this book a valuable resource to both practitioners and theoreticians."--Stephen Wilson, Professor of Conceptual and Information Arts, San Francisco State University, and author of *Information Arts*andlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"... a volume that will likely be used as a canonical text in the study of virtual reality...." Patrick Lichty Intelligent Agentandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press The MIT Press

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"Grau traces the lineage of virtual reality as farback as the frescoes of a villa in Pompeii." Scientific Americanandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"... andlt;Iandgt;Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersionandlt;/Iandgt; puts forth the sort of provocative insights that any Newromancer fan can appreciate." Wiredandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"Oliver Grau has given us one of the more fascinating works this year." Guy Van Belle European Photographyandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"The highly ambitious task of locating the latest image technologies within a wider art-historical context has now been accomplished." Friedrich Kittler, Humboldt University, Berlin, and author of andlt;Iandgt;Gramophone, Film, Typewriterandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"Grau has created a volume that will likely be used as a canonical text in the study of virtual reality...." Patrick Lichty Intelligent Agentandlt;/Pandgt; The MIT Press

Review

Review

andlt;Pandgt;"For over a decade now, Lovink has been one of the most prominent figures in cyber culture and new media worldwide. A new-media theorist, an Internet critic, an activist, an inventor of new innovative forms of net-based discourse, an organizer of ground-breaking events--remarkably, he excels at all these different roles. I think of Lovink as a network of distributed sensors: everywhere at once, he is always the first to notice new changing directions of net culture, the first to name them, and the first to offer sober and illuminating analysis. Now we are fortunate to have his brilliant dispatches from the Net front collected in one book. This is a new kind of book from a new type of public intellectual. Think of it as theory on-the-go--or as a set of help files to keep handy as you navigate the present, on- and off-line."--Lev Manovich, author of *The Language of New Media*Please note: Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote.andlt;/Pandgt;

Review

Grau traces the lineage of virtual reality as farback as the frescoes of a villa in Pompeii. Patrick Lichty - Intelligent Agent

Review

Oliver Grau has given us one of the more fascinating works this year. Wired

Review

The highly ambitious task of locating the latest image technologies within a wider art-historical context has now been accomplished. Guy Van Belle - European Photography

Review

Synopsis

Although many people view virtual reality as a totally new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive images. Indeed, the search for illusionary visual space can be traced back to antiquity. In this book, Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the art history of illusion and immersion. He describes the metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and relates those concepts to interactive art, interface design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution. Grau retells art history as media history, helping us to understand the phenomenon of virtual reality beyond the hype.

Grau shows how each epoch used the technical means available to produce maximum illusion. He discusses frescoes such as those in the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii and the gardens of the Villa Livia near Primaporta, Renaissance and Baroque illusion spaces, and panoramas, which were the most developed form of illusion achieved through traditional methods of painting and the mass image medium before film. Through a detailed analysis of perhaps the most important German panorama, Anton von Werner's 1883 The Battle of Sedan, Grau shows how immersion produced emotional responses. He traces immersive cinema through Cinerama, Sensorama, Expanded Cinema, 3-D, Omnimax and IMAX, and the head mounted display with its military origins. He also examines those characteristics of virtual reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of illusionary art.

His analysis draws on the work of contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss. Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space but also a theoretical framework for analyzing its phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout history and into the future.

Synopsis

An overview of the art historical antecedents to virtual reality and the impact of virtual reality on contemporary conceptions of art.

Synopsis

An overview of the art historical antecedents to virtual reality and the impact of virtual reality on contemporary conceptions of art.

About the Author

Oliver Grau is Professor for Image Science and Dean of the Department for Cultural Studies at Danube University. He is the author of Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (2003) and editor of MediaArtHistories (2007), both published by the MIT Press.